


Nothing is Sad until it's Over

by thedarkandstormyknight



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Healing, Introspection, M/M, Memory Loss, Regret, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24017680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedarkandstormyknight/pseuds/thedarkandstormyknight
Summary: On a quiet night after a day of lectures and tutoring, Bill asks the Doctor if he is glad he let her keep her memories, and if he ever regrets when someone loses their memories of him. The question sends him to the 18th Century, looking for answers.In Who canon, Jamie gets his memories back in his own way, but what if he didn't? What if a regeneration of the Doctor gave him back those memories?
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon, Twelfth Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53





	Nothing is Sad until it's Over

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very specific idea that I've wanted to explore for a while. So much of the 12th doctor's journey revolves around memories and ownership of those memories, and I thought it would be interesting to pit that up against the Second Doctor's companions, who lost their memories of him before he was forced to regenerate. What would it be like if the Doctor took those lessons and used them to bring back Jamie's memories? 
> 
> PS This is unedited, as it's 4:00 am, so I apologize for any mistakes.  
> PPS I apologize for the attempted Scottish accents

“Do you ever think about it?”

They sat on their bench, as they often did, on a day with no Tardis and no aliens. Just lectures, take away, and pop culture references that the Doctor resolutely did not understand. Bill had put together a watch list for him. He had all the time in the world, she said. He could surely suffer through one season of Star Trek for her. 

(He had already watched five seasons, loved every minute of it, and was waiting to tell her at the most opportune time, that is to say, to tell her when she next needed a distraction during a moment of danger.)

The Doctor rooted around in his cartoon of noodles for a red pepper slice and popped it into his mouth.

“Think about what?” 

“You know,” shrugged Bill, “the night you tried to wipe my mind. Do you ever think about it?”

“Do you?” It was a classic move of his. Answer a question with a question, and avoid giving his own response in return. He waited to see if Bill would call him out on it. She usually did.

“Course I do,” Bill said instead. “I think about it almost every day. My life would be completely different.”

“Not really,” said the Doctor. “There’d still be school and tutoring and serving chips in the canteen. All the things your life has now.” 

“Yeah but like.” Bill paused and tipped her head back, gazing at the night sky. The Doctor looked up too. He could name every star, every constellation floating above their heads, and had one night while sitting on this exact bench with this exact person. 

“Yeah. But. Like?” repeated the Doctor, over-enunciating the words in hopes of making her smile. She shoved her shoulder against him and grinned.

“Shut it, old man.” The fondness in Bill’s voice brought a smile to the Doctor’s own face. He was so glad he had her friendship. “You know what I mean,” she continued, gesturing with her arms and chopsticks, and sending rice flying all over the grass. “Like, the world’s so much bigger, right, and there’s so much more. You’ve shown me the most incredible things. And even if the only incredible thing I’d’ve ever seen was that first night with Heather and the spaceship and the water, well,” she shrugged again, “I think I’d know, if it was gone. If you had taken the memory. I think part of me would’ve always known. And that part of me would’ve been empty, because it would’ve known something was missing.”

And didn’t that make him think of Clara Oswald. There were other moments, of course, other times where he had lost a memory or two along the way (often at the hands of the Time Lords), but Clara’s absence was the most recent and the most painful at this time. The Doctor closed his eyes as his head echoed with the sweet opening notes of the song he had written for her, despite the fact that he couldn’t truly remember one day of their time together. Just the feelings he associated with the empty space in his mind. Love, warmth, and the burden and honor of being Known. Of being Seen in his entirety, for good and bad. He breathed in for a minute, remembering, aching, wanting. Clara. Then he opened his eyes.

“You’re right,” he said. “A part of you would have remembered.”

Bill nodded, satisfied with the answer, and the Doctor thought that that was the end of the conversation. But five minutes and eighty-seven breaths later, she picked it up again.

“Do you regret it? Letting me keep the memories?” 

“No.” The answer escaped the Doctor’s mouth without effort, without thought. Tension eased out of Bill’s shoulders, pressed up against his, and her next inhale-exhale was lighter. He had to know. “Did you think I did?” 

“Got you blinded, didn’t I? And the world taken over. Had to check.”

The Doctor straightened, causing Bill to shift out of her slumped position against his shoulder, and he met her eyes evenly. “You are my friend, Bill. I could never regret you. It’s important to me that you understand that. Do you understand that?” He hadn’t realized she still carried guilt over the Monks. 

Her large, expressive eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lip and stared intensely at the carton of food in her lap. The Doctor hesitated. Should he comfort her? Reassure her? He was never much good with crying humans, one of the few constants across nearly all regenerations. 

“Have you ever wiped anyone else’s memory?” Bill said, still blinking down at her now cold fried rice. The Doctor sighed. 

“Yes.” Donna Noble.

The follow up question was obvious.

“Do you regret any of those memory wipes?”

The Doctor was reminded of their adventure on the frozen Thames. Bill’s boldness, her ability to ask the tough questions, and the way she refused to accept his nonanswers -- he admired her for those traits as much as he admired her for her incredible heart. She refused to let him deflect whereas most people were cowed by the eyebrows and his general Scottishness. Granted, he did have some enormous eyebrows. Not as bad as the time he had had elephant ears, but close. 

“Yes,” he answered again. His throat worked as he tried to swallow another bite of noodles, but Donna’s terrified face swam in front of his eyes, and he found that he couldn’t. Yes, of course he had regrets. He was far too old not to. 

“Why don’t you go back and undo them?” 

“Because I can’t,” said the Doctor hoarsley. He felt a pressure on his hand and glanced down. Bill had taken his hand in hers. She gave it a squeeze, and he gripped her fingers tightly as his throat worked some more. So many years, so many lost companions, so many endings he could never change.

“Not even one?” said Bill. “You couldn’t fill the emptiness for one single person? The world won’t end, you know. You’re not that important, old man.” The last part coaxed a distant chuckle out of him as he sat wrapped in memories, but he sobered all too soon. A small, dark thought leaked its way out instead.

“Sometimes I think they’re better off. I know I always say you’re safest by me, but in reality, you’re safest by not knowing me. You asked, once, how many people I’ve killed. The answer, as I said, is high, but what’s even higher, I think, is the number of people who’ve gotten killed, simply for knowing me.” 

“And every one of them would think it was worth it,” said Bill with far more confidence than the Doctor thought was possible. “And I bet any one of them would say that, if you asked. You’re stuck here on earth for a thousand years guarding that thing, all the time in the world. If you could see one of your old friends one last time, fix one tiny wrong, who’d you want to see?” 

Maybe it was the Scottishness. Maybe it was the eyebrows. Maybe it was the incredible care Bill had shown him this past hour. Or maybe it was the dull, aching, neverending throb of missing Clara and knowing he would never gain those moments back, and knowing, out of all his past companions, who had the most similar gaping hole as he had now.

“Can you do me a favor?” he asked. Bill nodded. “Distract Nardole for me. I’ll be back in an hour.” He stood and straightened his jacket. 

“Course. Go get, ‘em, Doctor!” 

The Doctor went to his TARDIS. She hummed when he entered, and he ran a loving hand along the console. “Are you up for visiting an old friend?” he asked, and her lights glowed brighter. He flicked a few switches. “Take me back,” he murmured. “Take me back to the exact right moment.” He closed his eyes. “Let me see him one last time.” 

And with a whoosh and a whir and a clanging of bells, the TARDIS sped off into the time vortex. She landed in a mere three minutes, and the lights went almost white, as if she too was remembering when they last stood in this spot. 

The Doctor cracked open the door of the TARDIS and inhaled a deep breath of mist and moss and Pre-Industrial Revolution air. He turned back to the console. “Thank you.” She clanged in response and he exited. 

The wind was brisk but warm, and the upcoming walk promised beautiful sights. Unbidden, the Doctor found himself smiling. The ache of missing Clara, the pain of hoping for Missy, and all the other terrible moments, mistakes, and memories faded to the back of his mind to make way for a new hope, a new journey, a new memory. 

He had always meant to come back, he truly had, but he had procrastinated, put it off, feared that whatever regeneration he was on wouldn’t feel the same as he had that first fateful day, and his memories would be tainted, but as he crossed the hilltop and saw a little village sitting in the valley below, his hearts swelled and a poor, broken piece of them sparked back to life. Nearly fifteen hundred years had passed and yet, somehow, he had not moved on.

“Hello,” he said to a pair of young children playing in the grass as he entered the village. They smiled and waved, and he felt immensely grateful for this accent and this face. “I’m looking for a James McCrimmon?” The “r”s rolled particularly well in his current voice, and he took advantage at every opportunity. “Can you point me in his direction?” 

The children cheerfully obliged and pointed him down an ambling path to a modest home near the edge of the village. A bright wreath of wild flowers decorated the door, and the Doctor’s hearts panged in his chest. He remembered a day, a rare calm day, shortly after Victoria had joined them aboard the Tardis, sitting in a field and watching her teach flower weaving to Jamie. Jamie’s fingers, more accustomed to gripping a knife than fragile green stems, had faltered at first, but eventually he had found the rhythm of braiding, and when he finished his first flower crown, he had placed it on the Doctor’s head with a smile so pleased and proud that the Doctor had composed a whole song on his recorder to immortalize the moment. 

The memory shone like a star in his head. He couldn’t imagine living without it, and yet, here was the home of Jamie, his Jamie, who had been living without that memory and many more since the Time Lords had wiped his mind and exiled the Doctor. There were so many wrongs the Doctor could not right. So many moments he could not fix. So many places he could not revisit. 

But perhaps there was just enough wiggle room to do something kind. And after all, wasn’t that what being the Doctor was all about? 

He raised his hand and knocked. The sound staccatoed and stuttered out, a hesitant, hopeful, fragile thing, and the door opened. 

“Hello?” 

“Jamie,” the Doctor breathed out. For it was indeed Jamie. His Jamie. A little older now, face lightly lined, and several streaks of grey in his hair, but it was Jamie. Same face, same kilt, same warmth in his eyes.

“Aye?” said Jamie. Same voice too.

The Doctor moved forward without thought, possessed by the ghost of his past regeneration, and cupped Jamie’s face in his hands. “Jamie,” he repeated, reduced to a single word, a single thought, a single emotion. 

“Aye, that’s me,” said Jamie, oddly unbothered by a strange man holding his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, on reflex, perhaps, or muscle memory. “Dae I know ya?” 

“Not anymore,” said the Doctor. They had to make quite a sight, a spindly old man in a jacket and hoodie, cradling the face of a middle aged highlander, but what did the Doctor care about appearances? All that he cared about in this moment, he held in his hands. That was enough for him.

“Would you like to?” the Doctor continued. Jamie blinked, but other than that, he made no attempt to move away from the Doctor.

“Would I like ta get to know ya?” he asked. 

“Would you like to remember me?” 

“I dinnae know what you mean,” Jamie said, but he remained glued in place. Part of him, at least subconsciously, recognized the Doctor. That was enough for the Doctor. He tried to explain. 

“Do you ever feel like there’s something missing? Like you’ve forgotten something, but you can’t remember what? Like there’s a hole in your hearts, but nothing will fill it? And your life is not your life, and yet there’s nowhere else to go? Like you were changed and remade and you have no idea how?”

Jamie’s hands came up and tugged the Doctor’s lapel in an agonizingly familiar move. “Doctor?” he said, voice filled with wonder. 

“Aye,” said the Doctor in an echo of Jamie. “It’s me, Jamie. I’ve changed my face, my voice, and who knows what else, but it’s me. I came back for you.”

Strong arms flew around him, and the Doctor was pulled into a hug. And with Jamie, he found, he had no need to hide his facial expression both during and after the hug. 

“Come in,” said Jamie.

“Wait,” said the Doctor, and a frown crossed Jamie’s face. The Doctor resisted the urge to reach out and trace the lines and creases, still so familiar after all these years. Jamie had usually been the sensible one during their journeys. Victoria had been prone to flights of fancy, and Zoe to flights of science, and the Doctor himself to both and worse. Jamie had looked out for them, protected them, loved them, and indulged them in all their flights and fits with that same concerned frown.

“Ach no, Doctor, you can’t be about to leave already. I know you dinnae stick around long last time, but this is too short a visit, even for you.”

“That’s all you remember, right? Just that one adventure?” 

Jamie’s frown deepened and this time the Doctor was unable to resist reaching out and touching the wrinkles in his forehead. He had always felt so comfortable with Jamie. It was nice to see that instinct hadn’t faded over the years. 

“Aye,” said Jamie slowly. “What else was there?” 

“Oh, so much more, Jamie, so much. There was you and Ben and Polly, and then you and Victoria, and finally you and Zoe. But always you. For many, many years. The Time Lords, my people, stole those memories from you. I’m here to return them. May I?” From Donna, from Clara, from Bill, the Doctor had learned the weight and wisdom of asking for permission. Some of those lessons had been bitterly learnt, but they would never leave him now. Never. 

“I traveled with ya?” said Jamie. “For years?” 

“And years,” said the Doctor. He followed Jamie inside the little house and watched as Jamie dropped into a plain wooden chair. He appeared stunned.

“Really? Me?”

The Doctor nodded. “Yes.”

“But you’re--” Jamie gestured to all of him. “And I’m--” He pointed. “Why?” 

Perhaps that was the true mark of his companions. He met many wonderful, amazing, brilliant humans over the years, but the ones that stayed with him, the ones who became his most cherished friends, those were the ones who most needed what the TARDIS provided. The ones lost, searching for more, yearning for meaning, and desperately needing to learn that it was not them who had to work to be worthy of the Doctor, but the Doctor who had to work to be worthy of them. The ones who brought out the best in him, and the ones who most needed to meet the best of themselves. 

“Because you’re Jamie McCrimmon,” said the Doctor. He crouched at Jamie’s feet and placed a gentle finger on each side of Jamie’s temple. “Would you like to remember?” Finally, on his fourth ask, Jamie nodded his consent. They closed their eyes as one, and with a little push, the Doctor released his memories back to him. 

Jamie gasped, shuddered, and threw his eyes open. He knocked backwards out of the chair, sending it flying to the floor, and drew in a series of deep, harsh breaths. 

“I’m--” he started, “That is, you -- ach!” He threw up his hands and rushed at the Doctor, grabbing him in a desperate, bone-crushing embrace. He jammed his face in the intersection between the Doctor’s neck and shoulder, and the Doctor felt tears sink into the collar of his jacket. 

They clung to each other for nearly ten minutes, and although the Doctor would’ve blamed the length on Jamie had anyone asked, his hands trembled and dug into the soft fabric of Jamie’s shirt a little too much for the embrace to be as one-sided as he would have claimed. 

Jamie drew back after that, although his hands continued to clutch the Doctor’s jacket and he stayed as directly in the Doctor’s personal space as he always had. “I cannae believe I forgot all that,” he said. He sounded dazed. “I knew -- ach, I knew somethin’ was missin’, aye, but not that much. And the Time Lords! What did they do to you, eh? If they hurt you, I’ll --” 

“That was a long time ago,” interrupted the Doctor. He carried enough of his current pain. He had no urge to relieve the past pain of his exile. Still, it was sweet that Jamie cared so much. “But thank you.” With the amount that Jamie cared, the Doctor used to joke that Jamie should have the binary vascular system, not him. His heart was certainly big enough to make up two hearts. Jamie, who had had no idea what a binary vascular system was, or even what a vascular system was, had always responded with a tolerating “oh, aye,” and maybe an arm over the Doctor’s shoulder, if he was in that sort of mood. 

“They dinnae hurt you?”

“It was a long time ago,” said the Doctor. “I’m fine. I simply came here to return your memories.” 

Jamie’s answering expression was fond. “Oh Doctor, how long has it been?”

“Over a thousand years. Fifteen hundred or so,” said the Doctor, and the words were familiar, as if he had waited for someone that long (or longer?) before. Seven thousand years, his mind supplied. He had once waited seven thousand years. But for whom? 

“Over thousand years?” repeated Jamie. He was not privy to the Doctor’s inner monologue, but he seemed to pick up on the Doctor’s mood regardless. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” said the Doctor, too quickly. Jamie made a face, and the Doctor realized he was about to witness some of the “emotional maturity” Zoe had always complained about until she started breaking through her programming to gain some emotional maturity of her own. 

“I dinnae believe it. You wouldn’t come here just to restore my memories after a thousand years without a reason,” said Jamie. For a moment, the Doctor feared Jamie would make him talk, but Jamie simply reached out and tracked the Doctor’s wrinkles. The Doctor leaned into the touch as Jamie methodically mapped out his new, older face. 

“C’mon, Doctor,” Jamie said after a beat. He took the Doctor by the hand, walked him through the house, and out a back door. On the other side was a small slope and a lake, sparkling in the sun. Several children splashed in the water, and the Doctor knew that ten regenerations ago, he would have stripped to his long underwear (because that regeneration of him wore long underwear of all things) and dived into the water to join the children in their play. He had been so much more carefree in his 400s.

He and Jamie sat on the sloped grass and watched the children shout and play. The faint strains of a bagpipe carried through the village and across the lake, and for a few precious minutes, the Doctor was young again. 

“Dae ya still got that daft recorder?” Jamie asked.

“I play the guitar now,” answered the Doctor. 

“What do you play on that?” 

The Doctor hummed out a few notes. “Doo doodoo, dodododododo doo doodoo, dododododo dodo doo, dododo do doo.”

“It’s pretty. What d’ya call it?” 

“Clara.” And then he released the story into the wind. The confession dial. The memory wipe. Missy. Bill. His fears that she would be just another dead body by the end of knowing him. The question that haunted him. Was he a good man?

Jamie listened with the sort of attentiveness that anyone who didn’t know him would consider uncharacteristic. But he had always been a good listener. Even for the Doctor and Zoe’s long, scientific rambles, he had listened, and tried to understand. And wasn’t that one of the most human things a person could do to show their love for another? To listen and try to understand. 

“I know why you’re here,” Jamie said at the end of it. He didn’t offer empty promises or unwanted platitudes. “I know why you gave me my memories back.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor. Jamie never failed to impress him with his insights and singular takes on situations. His upbringing coupled with his travels in the Tardis gave him a unique worldview. 

“Because it’s kind,” said Jamie plainly, leaning back on his elbows. “Because that’s who you are. An’ even a thousand years since I last saw ya, you’re still you. You’re kind. A bit daft maybe and silly, but kind. And you love me.” 

“That simple?” 

Jamie nodded. “Aye. That simple.” And with Jamie at his side, it was. 

Together, they laid back in the soft, sweet-smelling grass, resting their heads next to each other and staring up at the clouds. Without prompting, Jamie pointed up at the clouds, identifying shapes and animals, and matching them to myths from his childhood or aliens from his travels. 

“Dinnae worry,” Jamie said when the tales had petered out and the sun started to slink behind the hills. “There’s more to you than you see. That’s why you need us to travel with you. Well, that and to protect you. You never did learn that aikido, after all.” Their hands tangled up together in the grass. 

“Oh,” said the Doctor as he finally realized why he had returned to this time and place. To this person. “Jamie, the best parts of me come from you. And I don’t want our time together to be over.”

“Nothing’s sad until it’s over,” said Jamie, unintentionally repeating words that the Doctor had once said in reference to Clara. He rolled over to face the Doctor. “But you and I? We’ll never be over. Not really. Not as long as one of us remembers the other. So go back out there, do what’s right, what’s decent, what’s kind, and keep yourself safe. And I’ll love you with every breath left in me.” 

The Doctor’s hearts expanded in his chest until he thought he might burst. “Come with me?”

“No, I got a life here, Doctor. A load of wee bairns to take care of. I can’t up and leave. Not anymore. But you showed how big the world really is. We’ll see each other again.” 

“You sure? All of time and space.” The Doctor tried not to sound desperate, but he wasn’t sure he could say goodbye to Jamie again. 

Jamie shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m happy where I am.”

“Happy,” echoed the Doctor. Jamie’s grip tightened in his.

“I’ll always miss you, always love you, but my place is here now.”

“And what about me?” 

Jamie’s free hand waved towards the sky. “You’ll go off in your TARDIS, get into trouble, poke your nose into other people’s business, and find a way to be happy. And when you need me next, I’ll be here, waiting for you.” 

“You’re really a lot wiser than we ever gave you credit for, aren’t you, Jamie?” 

“Ach, nae, I just think the best parts of me, I got from you.” Jamie sat up and brushed the grass off his knees, completely unaware of how much his words meant to the Doctor. He smiled. “Stay for dinner? I’ll have a time of it explaining to my wife why I spent the cloud watching.” 

“I have to be getting back,” said the Doctor. He wasn’t sure he could bear seeing a detailed look at Jamie’s life without him. Jamie nodded, as if he had expected that answer. 

“Dinnae wait another thirty years before coming back, eh?” 

“I won’t,” said the Doctor. They stood and hugged one last time, and some of the aching sadness Jamie’s presence had chased away clawed back up his throat. But he swallowed it down. Nothing was sad until it was over, but nothing was truly over; it only began again. He would see Jamie again. In the rolls of his r’s, in a glimpse of tartan in a shop window, in the determined attempts of Bill and Nardole to protect him, in Missy’s evolving kindness.

In a million different moments in a million different ways. Even when he said goodbye, he carried his companions with him, in his two hearts, and they made him more. They made him better. And they never went away. Not one of them. And they never would. 

He kissed Jamie once, a mere press of lips that said all the things he couldn’t say without also saying goodbye, and he left while Jamie’s eyes were still fluttered shut, making his way back to the TARDIS. 

“Take me home,” he asked her. As she whirled into action, he picked up his guitar and strummed a cord. He had a new song to compose.


End file.
